Happy New Year!
Bart Bosveld, SETAC Global Executive Director
In this issue of 2025, I wish you all the best for the year ahead. It promises to be a challenging year for environmental scientists. Science is frequently distrusted. Misinformation is rampant, scientific methods are neglected, short-term profits often trump environmental sustainability. In these circumstances, the counter-voice of SETAC is important, and our work to advance environmental science and science-based decision-making is as relevant as ever.
In the past year, SETAC published two new Technical Issues Papers to add to the list of fact sheets providing a balanced, scientific discussion of important environmental issues. The SETAC awards program recognized individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the advancement of environmental sciences and to the society, and our flagship journals, Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (ET&C) and Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (IEAM), which continue to lead in publishing cutting-edge research. And last but not least SETAC meetings, both physical and virtual, provided a platform to present and discuss research and scientific theories and supported thousands of scientists in all parts of the world to sharpen their minds, gain new insights and advance their research and contributed to the general understanding of environmental issues. The “SETAC 2024 Year in Review” highlights the main achievements on each of these items.
This is also a challenging time for SETAC as an organization. Since it’s founding in 1979 in North America, SETAC has grown into a global network with more than 9,000 active members in 128 countries. It is organized into five Geographic Units – Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America – and numerous regional chapters and branches, all under the umbrella of SETAC World as the global organization. This structure makes SETAC uniquely positioned and valuable in advancing environmental science on a global scale while fostering science-based environmental decision-making at local and regional levels.
As always, the expansion of SETAC into a truly global organization comes with its share of growing pains, and you may have noticed some. The global asssociation management system, the technical backbone of the society, was updated to better administrate members, committees and boards; manage abstract submissions for meetings hip administration, fees and benefits, website, meeting management,
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